


all i ever wanted was the world

by theonetheonlyalexthemonarch



Series: cw: graphic descriptions of elias [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Divorce, Engagement, Exhibitionism, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Making Out, Marriage Proposal, Monster Husbands, Unhealthy Relationships, Vanity, awful old men, cw: graphic descriptions of elias, elias bouchard is a Bastard, implied marriage, just... lonely eyes being. So terrible, non-sexual nudity but VERY sensual nudity, they're both unbearable bastards. i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 16:24:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21341203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonetheonlyalexthemonarch/pseuds/theonetheonlyalexthemonarch
Summary: Peter Lukas was thinking about proposing to Elias Bouchard. Again.An examination of the cycle they fall into, time after time.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Series: cw: graphic descriptions of elias [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693177
Comments: 21
Kudos: 227





	all i ever wanted was the world

**Author's Note:**

> there's a whole section where i describe elias's body. i have no recollection of writing this. good fucking luck lads. i can't believe the first thing i like enough to post in over a year is about two fucking middle aged monster men
> 
> also this whole thing is based on primadonna girl by marina and the diamonds, because that is elias's theme song, and this is the hill i will die on
> 
> thank you to @rootingformephistopheles for betaing this nonsense!!
> 
> also: just started using [twitter](https://twitter.com/bluezaffre) so come say hi to me!!

Peter is thinking about proposing to Elias. Again.

Elias never had much regard for Peter’s privacy and has no qualms about rooting around in his brain to see what he is planning. At the moment, he is trying to talk himself out of marrying Elias because they’d tried that eight times before, and every time it has ended poorly. 

“See anything interesting up there?” Peter asks sarcastically, feeling the influence of the Eye in his brain.

“Never,” Elias responds. “Your head is as empty as always.”

Peter snorts and turns his attention back to his meal. “You are awful, Elias.”

“You want me all the same,” he says languidly.

Peter shoots him a look, but does not deny it.

Elias smiles, showing all his teeth, and continues to eat his oysters.

Not an hour later, Peter has him pressed up against the door of his house and is doing  _ delicious _ things to his neck. 

“Peter…” he sighs. 

Peter licks a stripe up his neck and bites him, hard, just under his jaw.

He gasps. He saw that coming, yes, but the reality of it was so  _ good.  _ They never should have gotten divorced. They should be married. They should get married  _ right now. _

“Peter, tell me that you’ll do anything for me.”

“Anything,” Peter murmurs into his ear and Elias shudders in response. Peter’s  _ voice  _ is so  _ beautiful _ .

“Tell me you’ll waste your money on me.” He drags his nails across Peter’s coat and then up to rake them through his hair, encouraging him to keep sucking  _ there– _

“All of it,” Peter says against Elias’s collar bone, his breath hot against the cool night air. His tie had long since been loosened and the first three buttons of his shirt are undone. He is certain that he looks a disheveled mess to anyone who could see him.

He shudders again at the thought of someone seeing him like this. Ah, well. He is Beholding through and through, after all.

“Tell me… ” Elias says, low and deliberately, “Tell me you’ll waste your fortune on a new, big, shiny rock for my finger. Tell me you’ll get down on your knees right now. Tell me you want to–”

Peter inhales sharply and tries to pull back, but Elias tightens his grip on Peter’s hair and pulls him into a sharp, bruising kiss.

Peter’s mouth always fits so nicely against his. His beard could be a potential annoyance, certainly, but Elias has to admit he likes the aesthetic. And Peter plays dirty with his kisses, something Elias can appreciate. Teeth nipping at his lips, a hot, wet tongue inside his mouth, then the feeling of Peter pinning him against the wall again, forcing all the air out of him while he’s distracted. Exactly what he needs. 

He yanks Peter’s hair, forcing him away for a moment.

“Ask me, Peter. Ask.”

“Marry me, you  _ bastard.” _

“Yes, of course. Buy me an  _ awful, _ gigantic ring and kiss me again, you brute.”

Elias wakes up the next morning to an empty bed, the gaudiest engagement ring he has ever seen in his life on the pillow beside him, and a feeling of intense satisfaction.

* * *

Elias wants, very simply, everything forever. 

Perhaps a shallow motivation, but at least he was honest about it. 

He wants to be a never-dying king of the world. Incredible power and immortality. Is that really so much to ask? 

“You’re too much,” Peter tells him one day during a meeting in Elias’s office. “Entirely too much.”

Perhaps it is a little much to desire. 

“I can’t help it, you know,” Elias sighs out. “It’s in my rather excessively blue blood. I simply want everything.”

“Your blood’s not so blue any more,” Peter gripes. “If the way you drain my bank account is any indication.”

“Well, I suppose my upbringing must have imbued me with a… what’s the phrase…”

“Champagne taste on a beer budget?” Peter supplies dryly, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, that. Thank you, dear.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Too much,” he says again.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t encourage me by marrying me so often,” Elias replies sarcastically.

“I divorce you just as often.”

“First of all, I do the divorcing, usually. You piss me off all the time,” Elias says, extending a long, pale finger to count off the problems with Peter’s statement. “Secondly, this marriage tips the scales, and makes it so we actually have just one more marriage than we do divorces–”

_ “Lord, _ Elias, just because you’re  _ accurate  _ doesn’t mean you’re  _ interesting– _ ”

“And finally,” Elias flicks out one last finger and looks Peter dead in the eyes. “You always come crawling back.”

Peter scoffs. 

“Act aloof all you like, darling, but I haven’t proposed to you once, and you’ve proposed to me, by my count, nine times.”

Elias knows that Peter is trapped. He can’t deny that he’d been the one to propose every time; it was a fact. It is true, however, Elias had also been pulling some strings occasionally to… help him make his decision, like he had done last Tuesday evening. But Peter can’t bring  _ that  _ up either, because then he would be effectively admitting he was easily manipulated.

Peter, in the end, elects to not respond to that, and instead makes a noise of frustration. “You’re just so difficult all the time, Elias.”

“I thought you of all people would know that I’m really quite easy.”

“Ha-ha. Clever quip. You’re so smart, Elias.” Peter rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and slumps back in his chair. He could be so immature sometimes. “You’re not even that easy. You make me wait  _ months _ sometimes.”

“Yes,” Elias says smilingly, “but you do wait.”

Peter sneers at him.

Ten minutes later, Elias has four new hickeys and a tongue down his throat.

And, though this wasn’t exactly  _ news, _ Elias has Peter Lukas wrapped around his little finger.

* * *

“He’s quite pretty, don’t you think?” Elias asks his empty bedroom as he examines his naked body in the mirror.

Elias feels Peter’s hands on his waist before he saw them, cold and clammy and faint, like being touched by a rather possessive fog. Gradually, Peter comes out of the Lonely, his hands appearing first, then visibility creeps slowly up his arms, but he makes sure to bury his cold, wet nose in Elias’s neck before it gained any warmth and substance. 

Elias makes a noise of displeasure. Peter could be so much like a dog. A big, clumsy,  _ annoying  _ dog. Complete with cold, wet, uncomfortable kisses.

_ “Very _ pretty,” Peter agrees. “Prettier than James by  _ far. _ ”

“You didn’t know James in his youth,” Elias says. “He might have been very pretty, for all you know.”

“I like Elias more, anyway.”

Elias rolls his eyes. “That’s because Elias is a blonde twink, and James Wright was a crotchety old man.”

“Elias is a crotchety old man at this point, too, you know.” Elias feels Peter smirk against his skin, just where his neck meets his shoulder.

“Almost as crotchety as Peter. Perhaps you should get a new model,” Elias says, knowing full well that Peter could not. 

Peter bites Elias’s neck, hard. Elias sighs in contentment and turned his attention back to his reflection.

Elias’s body really is beautiful. It aged so well in the years he had it. His skin remained mostly taught and his muscles lean. Perhaps his lungs could be better if the original host of this body had shown some restraint in inhaling questionable things. But, on the whole, he is tall and lithe and ageing gracefully.

“You are  _ absurdly _ lucky that Elias Bouchard thought  _ eyes _ of all things were cool to tattoo on his person,” Peter grouses, tracing one of said eyes.

“Luck is one word for it,” Elias replies airily.

Peter pauses in his movements. 

Elias simply smiles at his body while he waits for Peter to connect the dots.

“You  _ didn’t,  _ you bastard.”

“It’s really amazing what totally random but  _ radical _ ideas can come to you while high off your ass.”

Peter locks eyes with Elias in the mirror, then lets his gaze trail down, down, down the beautiful stolen body. Down his face, to the sharp, high cheekbones, unblemished and proud, to the slim nose with a barely-visible piercing whole from his younger, less… inhibited days, arching delicately and attractively and innocently, to his thin but tempting lips, still chapped from the evening’s earlier activities, to his strong jaw, starting to get rough with stubble and red with bite marks along it. Down his neck, freshly bruised, coloring nicely, little blue-purple-red starburst patterns of broken blood vessels across his tendons and adam’s apple. Down his chest, slender and elegant, colorful from intricate tattoos, lines across his body that marked him for his god, colorful ink blooming into tracing into rigid, careful lines that all lead to gentle, watchful eyes, all spreading from the triangle around his heart that held the eye of providence, right between two rosy nipples, peaked from the chill of the room. Down his arms, not so muscular, but graceful, like carved marble come to life, the stone shifting powerfully under the smooth skin. Down his ribs and stomach, still criss-crossed with harsh angles and eyes, still smooth and pale, still tantalizing; a thin waist that made people want to put their hands on it (and, indeed, there were currently rough, sea-weathered hands exactly on that spot). Down his hips, to the sharp turns of his iliac crest, bruised slightly from clumsy, brutish hands, to the muscles of his pelvis, flat despite his middle-age– he was lucky for the stoner body, in the end– to the apex of his thighs, to his cock, decently long but not so wide, just like the rest of him, soft and uninterested at the moment. Down his legs, lean and long, muscles gently toned but not bulging and unappealing, slender and perfect to push apart, addicting, thighs covered with hickeys and shins with pale hair.

And then Peter drags his scrutinous gaze back up, going through the same process, backwards.

Elias shivers under the weight of Peter’s eyes, which is ironic, considering their connections. But his duty is to watch and be watched. He can’t help that he’s so partial to the process.

Peter’s eyes finally meet Elias’s in the mirror once more. They look into each other’s eyes for a long while, something that Elias supposes might be romantic if the two of them were literally anyone besides who they are. As it is, it’s a fight, a barely concealed power-play. One that they both know Elias will win.

Finally, Peter huffs a defeated laugh and looks away the bruises and ink that cover Elias’s shoulders. 

“I don’t know why you try. You know I’ll always beat you.”

“Probably the same reason  _ you _ still try gambling with me, even though you’ll never win,” Peter says, and Elias has to repress a smile. “Anyway. One day, you’ll lose. You need to. If not for probability’s sake, then just because if your ego gets any bigger it’ll collapse into a singularity.”

Elias rolls his eyes. “I do understand that you’re using hyperbole here, Peter, but I still think that it’s not nearly as big of a deal as you say it is.”

Peter turns Elias around in his arms, and Elias complies with this manhandling, only because it is very sexy of him.

Peter is breathing deep, steadying breaths as he examines Elias’s face. Elias just watches.

When Peter leans down and kisses Elias this time, Elias knows perfectly well that it is the last time they will see each other for a while.

* * *

Elias Bouchard does not  _ miss _ Peter Lukas.

He does not feel empty. He does not feel sad. And he most certainly does not feel  _ Lonely. _ He feels mild annoyance that his husband has gone off somewhere and that he won’t be able to sleep with someone for the next month or so.

He is not sad. He does not feel empty, deep down, right at the core of his being, that Peter chose to leave him. Again. 

He feels frustrated. With his husband, with his Archivist, with his plans. Nothing is going right. Every day, he comes into the office and Jon has gone and done another  _ stupid _ thing. Jon doing stupid things is, on the whole, an integral part of his plans, but it doesn’t make cleaning up after his messes any less of a chore. 

Elias takes a deep breath. Withholding information, concealing and deceiving, is not what he does. Even from himself.

He does not miss Peter, that is true. Peter is ridiculous and brutish and altogether unbearable in large doses. That’s why Elias divorces him so often. 

But he misses the way that Peter makes him  _ feel. _

Peter is so devoted to him sometimes, so… attentive and interested. He’s sarcastic and fun and, most importantly, he is  _ obsessively _ attracted to Elias. 

Elias is rather fond of that. Of feeling Peter  _ watch _ him and Know that he  _ wants _ him. It feels so  _ very _ good. 

Elias is, perhaps, a little vain. 

Peter doesn’t feel  _ that  _ strongly about him, of course. Peter certainly  _ wants _ him. But he mostly wants to be alone, and to make Elias suffer, so he plays up his adoration until Elias is addicted to it and then vanishes for months, forcing Elias to suffer through a painful and Lonely withdrawal. And then he comes back, and the cycle repeats again.

Well, whatever. Elias hurts Peter just as much for the sake of his own god and for the sheer twisted joy of it, so he can forgive Peter his flaws. Especially when Peter comes back with his  _ wants _ and  _ needs _ and  _ adoration. _

Besides, Elias, being who he is, has a sex tape of the two of them around here somewhere, and watching Peter want him should tide him over for at least a few weeks or so.

He would get up and find it– he knows where it is, of course, it’s on the bookshelf behind him with some other VHS tapes, hiding in plain sight– but Jon is leaving the Archives to speak with Elias, and will be in his office in around ten minutes.

He could probably get himself off in time, and the threat of Jon seeing him or walking in and Knowing what he did, or even just being able to tell from looking at him  _ is _ highly arousing, but it also feels like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. He doesn’t think that Jon would be clever enough to try it, but it would be  _ very _ embarrassing if he needed Peter to pay for his legal fees just because he couldn’t resist having a wank to  _ Peter Lukas _ of all people at work.

So he restrains himself and pretends to do work so he can be dismissive of Jon when he arrives. He does love to work, and he loves his job, but there is no point in starting doing something now when he’s just going to be interrupted in ten minutes.

Jon comes in exactly when he is expected to, but with less force than Elias thought. 

Elias decides to greet him with a put-upon sigh and a “what is it, Jon,” as he reluctantly drags his attention away from the paperwork he was not doing.

Jon doesn’t say anything for a long few moments, so Elias looks up at him curiously. He didn’t come all the way to Elias’s office to stare at Elias, so he might actually be thinking for once, horror of horrors.

Jon looks exhausted. And scared. Like at any moment, he might burst into tears.

It’s so very  _ perfect. _

“How?” Jon asks after a beat. He sounds quiet and defeated. “How do you  _ always _ make things turn out how you want them to?”

“Oh, Jon. I can’t reveal all my secrets, now can I?” Elias responds. 

A flicker of anger crosses Jon’s face, violent and furious, but it quickly gets swallowed up by his exhaustion and despair.

“You don’t deserve it,” Jon says, sounding very close to tears. “Anything. Any of this.”

“I’m sure I don’t,” Elias agrees. “But I get it anyway. Because I ask for it, and I fight for it, and I want it. Do you understand?”

Elias stands up and walks around his desk, intending to make Jon feel trapped from the lack of anything but air between them. It works. Jon can be so predictable sometimes.

“I want power, Jon.” Elias makes direct eye contact with Jon, the kind he knows Jon hates. “I want to have power and keep power, and I  _ work  _ for that. You could be so perfect, you could achieve so much if you just… worked for it. As much as I do.”

Elias leans back against his desk and and uses his gaze to keep Jon pinned in place, opened up to be scrutinized like a butterfly. 

“I would do anything for the Eye,” he tells Jon. “I think that ought to please you. It means I’m rather attached to keeping you alive, keeping you safe, and helping you grow. But first and foremost, I serve the Eye, because the Eye serves me. I serve you, because you serve me.”

Jon’s face flashes through too many emotions to name. He seems to have a moment of indecision, of paralysis, of simply not knowing what to do next. It’s really quite fascinating to watch.

Finally, he screws up his face and spits, “Fuck you, you pompous bastard,” and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Elias sighs walks behind his desk once more, stopping to grab the sex tape from his bookshelf. The VHS was somewhat annoying, but after much experimentation, he and Peter quickly realized that anything more modern was going to be corrupted. He isn’t sure if it’s the Lonely’s influence or the Eye’s influence, but it does have to be a VHS, which means he has to wheel out his whole setup if he wants to watch it.

Or, he can have a productive day at work for the moment, and enjoy himself at home. Paperwork is soothing to him, and thinking about Peter does tend to get him agitated. Peter doesn’t deserve that distinction, he decides. 

He opens the top left drawer of his desk and drops the VHS in it. Before he closes it, he smiles fondly at the eight awful, garish engagement rings that jostle around from the movement of the drawer and the new object in their space. 

He shakes his head and turns his focus back to his work, shifting the solid gold paperweight (that weighs about equal to eight wedding bands– fascinating).

When the work day is over and he is finished fighting for his crown, for his rightful place as king of a ruined world, when it is dark and he must rest, he will want Peter. He will burn with fury that Peter would supply him with attention and then snatch it away just when he became addicted. He will watch however many sex tapes he has, and then he’ll go fuck some other avatar in an attempt at misguided revenge that will not interest Peter in the slightest, and he will throw a minor tantrum at being discarded. He knows that it is really only fair; he uses Peter all the time. He controls Peter. He is awful to Peter. Peter is not doing any worse to Elias than Elias is doing to Peter. But he will seethe anyway, furious and impotent and Lonely, forced into serving another against his will. Later, when the light is gone, and he feels alone, he will be sent into a tailspin of fury.

But it is not yet later. 

So for now, Elias smiles fondly at the hideous ring on his finger, and he Watches over his Institute.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed!! mmmmaybe i'll write more of this "elias being a slutty bastard to marina and the diamonds" thing i started? but maybe not. 
> 
> if you wanna talk tma with me, you can find me on my tumblr, podcastidiot
> 
> thank you for reading!!


End file.
